TY  - EJOU
AU  - Xie, Liang 
AU  - Peng, Peihao 
AU  - Wang, Haijun 
AU  - Chen, Shengbin 

TI  - Environmental Drivers and Spatial Prediction of the Critically Endangered Species <i>Thuja sutchuenensis</i> in Sichuan-Chongqing, China
T2  - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany

PY  - 2022
VL  - 91
IS  - 9
SN  - 1851-5657

AB  - Identifying the ecological environment suitable for the growth of <i>Thuja sutchuenensis</i> and predicting other potential distribution areas are essential to protect this endangered species. After selecting 24 environmental factors that could affect the distribution of <i>T. sutchuenensis</i>, including climate, topography, soil and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), we adopted the Random Forest-MaxEnt integrated model to analyze our data. Based on the Random Forest study, the contribution of the mean temperature of the warmest quarter, mean temperature of the coldest quarter, annual mean temperature and mean temperature of the driest quarter was large. Based on MaxEnt model prediction outputs, the potential distribution map not only identified areas that originally recorded <i>T. sutchuenensis</i>, such as Xuanhan County, Kai County and Chengkou County, but also identified highly suitable distribution areas where <i>T. sutchuenensis</i> may exist, including Wanyuan County, Sichuan Province, and the junction of Chongqing and Hubei Province. This provides a more explicit geographic range for <i>ex situ</i> conservation and reintroduction of <i>T. sutchuenensis.</i> Our results also indicate that, in addition to climate factors, topography and soil factors are also important environmental factors that affect distribution. This provides a theoretical basis for subsequent laboratory construction to simulate the indoor growth of <i>T. sutchuenensis</i>.
KW  - <i>Thuja sutchuenensis</i>; environmental drivers; spatial prediction; conservation; Random Forest-MaxEnt model

DO  - 10.32604/phyton.2022.018807